amincognito wrote:to the lady that gaines 70 pounds.drink 4 glasses of water a day with 4 glasses of cranberry juice.also,vast quantities of cannes or frash pears.you'll get thinner.and,your stomach will feel comfortable

OMG. Does my advice sound this ridiculous? Of course you will lose weight and your stomach will feel better if you just drank watered-down cranberry juice and fresh pears (not the non-nutritious canned pears where the nutrients have been destroyed and toxins added). But how long can you maintain that? How does it fit in with your lifestyle choices? And it is a symptom pacifier, not the cure to fix the problem in the first place. As soon as you stop, you will be right back where you were in the beginning.

And besides cranberry juice is for bladder infections. And it only provides an environment that the bacteria can not adhere to the endothelial cells of the bladder and urethra. You still need a bactericide/or your own immune system to kill the bacteria completely. Definitely a symptom pacifier, and weak at that. You need to have 100% cranberry juice several times a day, and 100% cranberry juice is not very palatable for most people's taste buds. Clinical trials have been done and are promising in keeping recurrenting urinary tract infections away when drinking the 100% cranberry juice for 12 months, but they were having a very high drop out rate in the trials and in the follow-up trials (not a loyal lifestlye choice perhaps?).Also the cranberry fruit itself contains polyphenolic extracts that inhibit the growth and proliferation of breast, colon, prostate, lung, and other tumor cells, as do flavonols, proanthocyanidin oligomers, and triterpenoids. The unique combination of phytochemicals found in cranberry fruit may produce synergistic health benefits providing possible chemopreventive mechanisms such as apoptosis of tumor cells and anti-inflammatory activities including inhibition of cyclooxygenases. Of course this aspect is only being found in mice, and not in clinical human trials. Anybody want to eat cranberry fruit everyday? And in a quantity that would produce the same results found in the mouse experiments?

I ran across this while Google-ing my condition. Ironically, I was (past tense) a molecular biologist about 25 years ago.

I've read through this thread and can't seem to find anything similar to my situation - so I thought I'd take a try at asking if anyone had heard of this.

I am a 56 year old male, in good shape, and have exercised regularly for many many years. I am not overweight (in terms of fat deposits), though I am 5' 10" and about 210lbs. I've been about that weight for 15 years. I have had GERD most of my life and am on medication for it - and have been for years. Its not much of a problem anymore.

I've always had some degree of a distended belly - even as a skinny child. In the past 10 or so years, I've developed a "water belly" for lack of a better word. I tend to drink a lot of water - 6-8 liters a day. This is even greater at times when I have done lots of exercise. I also take Adderall (amphetamine salts) for adult ADD - which tends to dehydrate me somewhat and make that water intake amount necessary.

I'll wake up with only a slightly distended belly. Through the day, I get bigger and bigger. I'm sitting here now (late at night) with a big distended abdomen which by morning will be greatly relieved. Even if I cut out the Adderall, I still need to drink a decent amount of water - especially on days I work out. I have no other medical problems that I am aware of.

I would think that water would flush things through and even prevent bloat - as I have seen lots of people here talking about drinking lots of water for relief, etc.

I am going to see my Gastroenterologist next month for a (routine) upper endoscopy. I will ask him about this - but most Dr's tend to either tell me its nothing or submit me to foolish tests and come up with no answer. I do know that my stomach is slow in emptying - but its been that way for years and water should not have an effect on it. I think my whole GI system is slow - part of the underlying causes for GERD I'm afraid. But it's not thatslow.

Since all of the GI motility drugs have been removed from the market other than Motilium (domperidone), I may try that - though It's a bit difficult as its not a US drug, and has to be obtained from Canada or England (with Rx, of course).

Anyone have any ideas? I am baffled. It seems to get worse and worse as I get older. I have lots of UGI studies as I need to have my reflux issue monitored - and nothing unusual has ever been found other than slight gastritis.

Living with a football in one's stomach is really annoying. If I don't eat or drink - I don't have that problem - but thats not a real life! Help!

Mmmm. That was alot on a website to digest. I found myself agreeing with the website authors at times, but then at other times not agreeing because they just dismissed the idea. It is a heterogenous mixture of claims on both sides.

Overall, I looked at the concept that if the digestive enzymes did not help me, that they would not hurt me either and that I would be just wasting my money. So I proceeded to try them and found out that they did work for me. Now I do have to say that they are just a symptom pacifier, and that I am still looking into the cause of my symptoms (lower abdominal bloating during the day - especially after eating a meal, and bouts of painful constipation). I've done an allergen test and found out what foods I am "intolerant" of, and have tried to keep them out of my diet. I have also added certain foods to help me repair any damage to my GI tract that may have occurred during my unhealthy eating of my youth (fast food mostly): mostly vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. While this might not help everybody, it appears to be at least helping me.

I also wanted to add for anybody else reading this, that I am careful about what I eat. I do not eat any fast food or processed foods from the grocery market, and so I make all my own meals from scratch (time consuming, so my choices are getting to be real basic, and possibly almost just a raw food way of eating at times - I will choose to eat an apple or some other fruit over making cookies or muffins).

I also have become a vegan over the last 7 years - started cutting out red meat and pork out (for a year), - then chicken (the next year after that), - and then dairy (took me 2 years to do this. I am tempted to say that casein is addictive) - I will admit to having eggs every once in awhile but have noticed that mucus builds back up in my lungs when I do eat them and have to swallow aggregates thru out the day.

I also like to do all the "greens" that are available, and have my own sprouting system, and actually like wheatgrass juice (with a lemonade chaser though).

I have also done yoga and have taken my experience with controlled breathing techniques and meditation to calm my stress down. I try to look at my life and my environment in a positive way, so that my stress hormones stay at moderate or low levels. I also exercise 30- minutes a day, preferably something outside with nature: a 3 mile trail run is my favorite exercise to do every other day during the summer/warm fall season.

I also take the supplements of omega oils, Vitamin B-12 (actually a B-complex), chlorella, vitamin D (blood test showed that it was low), and my newest experiment is resveratrol and nattokinase (still debating with the effects I am observing, so I am continuing to use both of them to see a long term effect).

Thus, I am doing alot of stuff from many different angles. Which I believe is what people should be doing, and not just focusing on the one symptom and the one medication.

Mmmm. That was alot on a website to digest. I found myself agreeing with the website authors at times, but then at other times not agreeing because they just dismissed the idea. It is a heterogenous mixture of claims on both sides.

Overall, I looked at the concept that if the digestive enzymes did not help me, that they would not hurt me either and that I would be just wasting my money. So I proceeded to try them and found out that they did work for me. Now I do have to say that they are just a symptom pacifier, and that I am still looking into the cause of my symptoms (lower abdominal bloating during the day - especially after eating a meal, and bouts of painful constipation). I've done an allergen test and found out what foods I am "intolerant" of, and have tried to keep them out of my diet. I have also added certain foods to help me repair any damage to my GI tract that may have occurred during my unhealthy eating of my youth (fast food mostly): mostly vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. While this might not help everybody, it appears to be at least helping me.

Glad your open to input, aside from pepsinogen, most other digestive enzymes take place in the intestines, and any proteins that enter the stomach will most likely be broken down or denature. If you feel these suppliments help you, then who I am I to argue, but you must consider the facts when spending large amounts of money on suppliments. It is my intent that people consider these things prior to spending the hard earned dollar or Euro, what ever the case may be. Best wishes...

But you got me thinking about pepsinogen and how it needs a pH of 3.5 for optimal activity, and at least a pH of 5 for activation. Vegans are known to have a basic pH constitution, and I wonder if my stomach pH is not optimal. Would explain the orange juice cravings I have been having whenever I want to eat (providing an acidic environment at the time of the meal). The thought of swallowing a ph litmus paper and throwing it back up doesn't thrill me. Wonder how I could check the pH of my stomach. A question for my doctor friend.

Not painful, cause I can handle pain, but very uncomfortable, which is hard to handle mentally. I have a very strong gag reflex, so the string down the esophageal may be very uncomfortable for me. The capsule would be cool as it goes thru my whole GI tract while giving data. Talking about uncomfortable, I am probably going to have to get a colonoscopy soon. Though it is going to be so cool to see the insides of my colon and large intestine.

I red most of postings about stomach bloating, seems like there is no concrete answer, I do not want to discourage people who has these symptoms including me, rather is a good news for you and hope that will work for you. Being a religious person I fast once a year for at-least one month, that means have your meal it could be anything before dawn and then eat nothing, drink nothing till sundown then break your fast with anything. Sound very tough, in the beginning you will feel miserable, but after few days will be ok_you will feel lot better energetic this is my personal past experience and if you add prayer with it, that will be even better. and if you want to ask my religion I am happy to guide you.Give a try.

Effie wrote:I red most of postings about stomach bloating, seems like there is no concrete answer, I do not want to discourage people who has these symptoms including me, rather is a good news for you and hope that will work for you. Being a religious person I fast once a year for at-least one month, that means have your meal it could be anything before dawn and then eat nothing, drink nothing till sundown then break your fast with anything. Sound very tough, in the beginning you will feel miserable, but after few days will be ok_you will feel lot better energetic this is my personal past experience and if you add prayer with it, that will be even better. and if you want to ask my religion I am happy to guide you.Give a try.

Oh, brother. Fasting is ill advised in my opinion. Setting religion aside, fasting can send your body into a spiral of so many health problems I cannot mention them all. It is ill advised to fast. Consider this, if god wanted you to fast, God would never have given you hunger hormones.

Eat my friends... Quit worrying so much about your shape, this is unimportant, those that will love you, will love you regardless of shape.

Fasting to me can just be a mental focus, If you can eat whatever you want, but only at certain times, then you still could have saturated fat-fried donut cakes in the morning before sunrise and then stuff yourself with a huge overlycooked non-nutritious meal at night (not good on the digestion filling one's digestive system with undigested food before bed is not a healthy way to eat).

I've only done liquid or juicing fasts for only a week. And I try to drink the raw juiced fruit/vegetable medley meal every 3 hours. And if you add raw spirulina to the juice then you have your protein for day also. Cleans/detoxifies you right out, and doesn't make your hormones flunctuate during the day or night. The only thing missing is the fiber, but if you add the pulp from your juicing, then you have your fiber also.

I don't worry about my shape. It is my insides that I worry about. How abused I have been in the past with the foods I have eaten! I have alot of cleaning to do.